The Sabbath was the consecration of one day of the weekly period to
God
as the Author of the universe and of time. The day thus being the
Lord's, it required that man should abstain from working for his own
ends and interests, since by working he would appropriate the day to
himself, and that he should devote his activity to
God
by special acts of positive worship. ...............

Origin of the Sabbath

The Sabbath is first met with in connection with the fall of the manna
(Ex., xvi, 22 sqq.), but it there appears as an institution already
known to theIsraelites.
The Sinaitic legislation therefore only gave
the force of law to an existing custom. ...........

The Sabbath in the New Testament

Christ, while observing the Sabbath, set himself in word and act against this
absurd rigorism which made man a slave of the day. He reproved the scribes and
Pharisees for putting an intolerable burden on men's shoulders (Matt., xxiii, 4),
and proclaimed the principle that "the sabbath was made for man, and not man for
the sabbath" (Mark, ii, 27). He cured on the Sabbath, and defended His disciples
for plucking ears of corn on that day. In His arguments with the Pharisees on
this account He showed that the Sabbath is not broken in cases of necessity or
by acts of charity (Matt., xii, 3 sqq.; Mark, ii, 25 sqq.; Luke, vi, 3 sqq.; xiv, 5).
St. Paul enumerates the Sabbath among the Jewish observances which are not obligatory
on Christians (Col., ii, 16; Gal., iv, 9-10; Rom., xiv, 5). The gentile converts held
their religious meetings on Sunday (Acts, xx, 7; 1 Cor., xvi, 2) and with the
disappearance of the Jewish Christians churches this day was exclusively observed as
the Lord's Day. (See SUNDAY.)

.....According to many church scholars, Gentile Christians openly observed
the seventh-day Sabbath in conjunction with Sunday worship until the time of
the Council of Laodicea. Prior to the Laodicean council, observing Saturday
as a Sabbath and Sunday as a day of worship was primarily seen in Palestine,
and after the Laodicean Council, Saturday observance was forbidden.
This is often considered an attempt of the early Christian church to
distance itself from Judaism.

Basis of First Day Observance

....These early Christians believed that the resurrection
and ascension of Christ
signals the renewal of creation, a day analogous to the first day of creation
when God made the light, making the first day like the seventh day when God's
creating work attained to its goal. Reasoning this way, some wrote of the first
day as a greater day than the Sabbath, an "eighth day" on which, through Christ,
mankind was redeemed out of futility and brought into the Sabbath-rest of God.
However, these writers do not call the day a Sabbath
and generally fail to acknowledge that God blessed and hallowed the seventh day.

The Catholic
Church declares no scriptural bases for first day observance:
"Q; Have you any other way of proving that the [Roman] Church has power to
institute festivals? A: Had she not such power she could not have instituted
one in which all modern religionists agree with her - she could not have
substituted the observance of Sunday the first day of the week, for the
observance of Saturday, the seventh day of the week. A change for which
there is no Scriptural authority" [Keenan's Doctrinal Catechism]

"Nowhere in the bible do we find that Jesus or the apostles ordered that the
Sabbath be changed from Saturday to Sunday. We have the commandment of
God given to Moses to keep holy the Sabbath day, that is, the seventh
day of the week, Saturday. Today, most Christians keep Sunday because
it has been revealed to us by the [Roman] church outside the bible."
Catholic Virginian, Oct. 3, 1947

Sunday vs Saturday

In 321,
the former sun worhipper, Emperor
Constantine
established the first
day as a "venerable day", distinct from the Jewish Sabbath
(See: Blue Law).
It is believed by many that, at least the Jewish Christians, and some Greek
and Asian Christians, continued to meet on the Sabbath, even if they also
met on Sunday, perhaps even after the Council of Laodicea
(a local council in Asia, held in
364,
which rejected those who kept the Sabbath). It is
certain that seventh day observance was eventually eliminated in the Catholic
and Orthodox church, but it survived in some cases outside of that communion.

Sabbath in The New Testament

............. However, in many cases, there are those who keep the seventh-day
as the Sabbath day of rest. From Mark 2:28, for example, the statement made by Jesus,
"the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath," indicates that Sabbath keeping is
central to following Christ. In other words, since Christ kept the seventh day
Sabbath, this is the true Lord's day, according to Him. Further, in reference to
the future destruction of Jerusalem, Christ states in Matthew 24:20, "And pray that
your flight may not be in winter or on the Sabbath." Sabbatarians maintain that
this indicates Christ expected the Sabbath to be kept subsequent His death. Also,
on the weight of Hebrews 4:8-11, the Sabbath (that is, Saturday) remains a Christian
Holy Day, and Sabbath-keeping is an abiding duty as prescribed in the fourth commandment
of Exodus 20:8-11 and Deuteronomy 5:12-15. Since the Sabbath was blessed and hallowed
as a memorial of creation in Genesis 2:3 and was therefore established even before the
fall of Adam, it is the day of rest, given by God, for all humanity, for all time.
Generally the religious festivals, new moons, and accompanying high sabbaths of
Leviticus 23, Numbers 28-29, Isaiah 1:13-14, Hosea 2:11 and Colossians 2:16-17
are not observed, as these are understood to have been fulfilled by the coming
of Christ and their misused practice condemned by Isaiah and Hosea.

Seventh-day Sabbatarianism

.......The Seventh Day Baptists arrived at
the height of their direct influence on other sects, in the middle of the 19th
century, in the United States, when their doctrines were instrumental in founding
the Seventh-day
Adventist Church and the Seventh-day Church of God. The Worldwide Church of God, which (after 1934) descended from
a schism in the Seventh-day Church of God, was founded as a seventh-day
Sabbath-keeping church, but in 1995 renounced sabbatarianism and moved toward
the Evangelical "mainstream."

The Sunday Problem , a study book of the United Lutheran Church (1923), p. 36.

"We have seen how gradually the impression of the Jewish sabbath faded from
the mind of the Christian Church, and how completely the newer thought underlying
the observance of the first day took possession of the church. We have seen that
the Christians of the first three centuries never confused one with the other,
but for a time celebrated both."

Augsburg Confession of Faith art. 28; written by Melanchthon, approved by Martin
Luther, 1530; as published in The Book of Concord of the Evangelical Lutheran
Church Henry Jacobs, ed. (1 91 1), p. 63.

"They [Roman Catholics] refer to the Sabbath Day, a shaving been changed into
the Lord's Day, contrary to the Decalogue, as it seems. Neither is there any
example whereof they make more than concerning the changing of the Sabbath Day.
Great, say they, is the power of the Church, since it has dispensed with one
of the Ten Commandments!"

Dr. Augustus Neander, The History of the Christian Religion and Church Henry
John Rose, tr. (1843), p. 186.

"The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was always only a human
ordinance, and it was far from the intentions of the apostles to establish
a Divine command in this respect, far from them, and from the early apostolic
Church, to transfer the laws of the Sabbath to Sunday."

John Theodore Mueller, Sabbath or Sunday , pp. 15, 16.

"But they err in teaching that Sunday has taken the place of the Old Testament
abbath and therefore must be kept as the seventh day had to be kept by the
children of Israel ....
These churches err in their teaching, for Scripture has in no way ordained
the first day of the week in place of the Sabbath. There is simply no law in
the New Testament to that effect."

METHODIST

Harris Franklin Rall, Christian Advocate, July 2, 1942, p.26.

"Take the matter of Sunday. There are indications in the New Testament as to
how the church came to keep the first day of the week as its day of worship,
but there is no passage telling Christians to keep that day, or to transfer
the Jewish Sabbath to that day."

John Wesley, The Works of the Rev. John Wesley, A.M.,
John Emory, ed. (New York: Eaton & Mains), Sermon 25,vol. 1, p. 221.

"But, the moral law contained in the ten commandments, and enforced by
the prophets, he [Christ] did not take away. It was not the design of his
coming to revoke any part of this. This is a law which never can be broken ....
Every part of this law must remain in force upon all mankind, and in all ages;
as not depending either on time or place, or any other circumstances liable
to change, but on the nature of God and the nature of man, and their unchangeable
relation to each other."

The Sabbath was binding in Eden, and it has been in force ever since.
This fourth commandment begins with the word 'remember,' showing that the
Sabbath already existed when God Wrote the law on the tables of stone at
Sinai. How can men claim that this one commandment has been done away with
when they will admit that the other nine are still binding?"

In defense of the Sabbath, Philo, the spokesman of the Greek-speaking
Jews of Alexandria says, "On this day we are commanded to abstain from
all work, not because the law inculcates slackness ...
Its objects is rather to give man relaxation from continuous and
unending toil and by refreshing their bodies with a regularly calculated
system of remissions to send them out renewed to their old activities ...

..."Last in creation, first in intention" the Sabbath is " the end of
the creation of heaven and earth". The Sabbath is not for the sake of
weekdays; the weekdays are for the sake of Sabbath. It is not an interlude,
but the climax of living.

.....What is so luminous about a day? What is so preciuos to captivate
the hearts ? It is because the seventh day is amine where spirit preciuos
metal can be found with which to construct palace in time, a dimension
n which human is at home with the devine; a dimension in which man aspires
to approach the likeness of the devine.

For where shall the likeness of God be found ? There is no quality that
space has in common with the essence of God. There is not enogh freedom on
the top of the mountain; there is not enough glory in the silence of the sea.
Yet the likeness of God can be found in time, which is eternity in disguise.